TO:95 | BJ Nilsen "Eye of the Microphone"

December 16, 2013

BJ Nilsen’s new album is now available to order in the TouchShop. ‘Eye of the Microphone’ was recorded and mixed in London, 2012-13. You will receive a free download of Nilsen’s recent performance at Café Oto with this album, when purchased in the TouchShop. We are now taking advanced orders. Release date is December 16th.

Extended Digipak - 3 tracks - 43:19

Mastered By Denis Blackham at Skye Mastering
Artwork and photography by Jon Wozencroft

Track listing:

1. Londinium
2. Coins and Bones
3. Twenty Four Seven

BJ Nilsen (b,1975 Sweden) Is a sound and recording artist. His work is based on the sound of nature and its effect on humans. He primarily uses field recordings and electronic composition as a working method. He has worked for film, television, theatre, dance and as sound designer. His newest album presented here is “Eye Of The Microphone” [Touch # TO:95, 2013] - a somewhat surreal audio rendition of the sounds of The City of London. Currently also working on The Acoustic City, a book publication with CD, co-edited with Matthew Gandy, [2014, JOVIS Verlag, Berlin].

Recorded and Mixed in London 2012 – 2013

++ To stroll properly, one should not have any particular plans ++

In 2012 I received a scholarship from the Leverhulme Trust for a one-year Artist in Residency at the UCL Urban Laboratory in London, to introduce sound as an art practice to urban scholars and students. As part of my research I decided to dérive the city.

I spent full days and sometimes nights sweeping the streets and its interiors for sound - walking and listening with no route or intention. A city without sound does not exist. Every location, passageway, alley, road, park, and pub contains its own world of isolated sound events and patterns - the sound of a shopping bag caught by the wind on the asphalt of a busy street when a bus passes by. What seems to be merely a bus is also a cacophony of sounds, a sound world in itself: hydraulics, breaks, interior noise, honking, public announcements, humans, rolling bottles, cell phones, mp3 players. The rattle of an air-conditioning unit in an old pub toilet gradually develops its broken down sound over many years, creating a raga for it own demise. Nobody seems to hear it. Is it there? The choice of sound varies; it's a personal selection, some sounds made it into this composition, many hours of recording didn’t.

Sound composition can alter space and time and transform a specific location and experience into an imaginary world.